Certain known techniques for measuring and controlling attitude of a moving body commonly rely upon a gyroscope spinning about a vertical axis, or upon a liquid sensor, or upon a pendulum device responsive to downward gravitational orientation. However, the mass of a pendulum renders such devices also responsive to acceleration, and hence are not useful as attitude sensors in dynamic systems involving an accelerating body. Similarly, liquid sensors exhibit mass that affects attitude detection during acceleration, and also such sensors are vulnerable to vibration that affects surface characteristics of the liquid upon which sensing may depend.
Vertically-oriented spinning gyroscopes commonly operate as attitude sensors, but are usually heavy, bulky, expensive devices that are subject to precession and drift errors. They also suffer from poor reliability in rugged operating environments due to the moving parts that make up the technology which require periodic maintenance to keep the units operational.
Other known attitude sensors rely upon multiple GPS receivers at spaced locations to compute attitude from signals received at each location. However, such computation of attitude is subject to the distance inaccuracy of signals received at each location, and the spacing of the locations should be very much larger than the distance error associated with each such location, and this contributes to unacceptably large systems for making fine attitude measurements. Rate sensors of negligible mass such as ring laser gyroscopes have been used in attitude-sensing measurements, but are vulnerable to drift and associated long-term instability.